 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. Today, we're going to discuss an important recent decision of the government of India. It was to extend for another five years what has come to be known as the free Russian scheme. We have with us Dr. Deepasena, who is with the Ambedkar University. Demi, she has been deeply involved with issues related to food rights, nutrition, and public health for many years. Dr. Deepasena, a warm welcome to you to this NewsClick interview. Can we begin by first going over the recent announcement by the prime minister that the free Russian scheme, the Pradhan-Mathri-Garib under Yojana, PNGKY, it has been extended for another five years. It must be a huge relief for the 80 crore beneficiaries. But the right to food campaigns, work here followed, has expressed some concerns. It has said the government is somehow misrepresenting or mispresenting itself visibly the Russian scheme. Can you explain what the concern exactly is? So what does the announcement say? It says that the Pradhan-Mathri-Garib Kalyan and Yojana is extended for another five years. So the history of this PMGKY is that it started as a COVID relief program in 2020, where people who were getting rations under the National Food Security Act were getting 5 kgs extra per head per month as an extra cushion for them to help with COVID, right? So under the NFSA, which was passed in 2013, the Act, each person who has a Russian card, who's in a household which has a Russian card gets five kilos per person per month. Because of COVID, under this new scheme PMGKY, they added another five kilos. Now that went on for almost two years till the end of 2022. In between it had stopped sometimes, but when again COVID waves happened and lockdowns came, they restarted this program. And there's a lot of evidence and also one can just see in terms of how it's become so politically popular as well, that it was a very useful scheme because at this time when people were losing their jobs and prices were increasing, getting this additional five kilos meant that almost all the serial needs of a household was met through the PDS. So at least the basic staples they could meet through the PDS and then they would need to only buy whatever the other food items were. Now what happened in January 23 is that these additional five kgs was actually stopped. But what the government did was that the original, your five kilos was anyway being given from 2013 under the NFSA. It was earlier given a three rupees for rice and two rupees for wheat. They made that free. So if you see what is it that people got additionally from 2023, they lost five kgs which they were getting as COVID relief which would be worth something like hundred, then 20 to 150 rupees. What they gained is that in the remaining five kgs, the two to three rupees that they were paying, they don't have to pay anymore. So on the one side they lose grains worth over a hundred rupees. On the other side, what the individual is getting is a gain of spending about 10 to 15 rupees less each month, right? So that is what we are calling as being a bit deceiving because yes, it is true that compared to the NFSA where people were paying two, three rupees, now they don't have to pay anything. But on the other hand, compared to what they were getting from 2020 to 2022, which one could see was useful and that distress is not yet over, that has been actually reduced. And in this process, that name PMGKY has been carried forward. So PMGKY was a special system. The public distribution system is in a sense being referred to as the PMGKY. Basically the public distribution system under the National Food Security Act is now being referred to as the PMGKY with one very small change which is that where people were paying two rupees for a kilo of wheat, now they don't pay that two rupees. But that's all, that is the change. So why isn't that a very significant change? Why do you call it a very small change? I mean, if you look at it from the point of view of an individual family, then the change is like I'm saying, it's 10 rupees per person that they are saving. Compared to the amount of noise that is being made, that this is some sort of a path breaking intervention that is being done, I'm also calling it a small change because in comparison to what is required to be done for food security in today's context, where there is so much unemployment, where prices are in fact rising even more now, even more than when they were during COVID and where we very clearly understand that food security is not just about rice and wheat, and we are having to import pulses and oil and so on, that if we were really to address the issue of food security, then there are many other things to do, to get away with doing the small thing, giving it a new name. Then I just feel that in terms of, I mean, it is an additional intervention like I'm saying, but compared to the scale of the program, it's not of the problem, it's not so big. Also to the kind of attention that it is getting, it has to be somewhere commensurate to what it is doing. All right. Now, the other thing is the 80 crore beneficiaries. Now, the 2013 scheme had expected to help 81 crore plus people, a little over 81 crore people, but we're at 80 crore. So how does one understand this? This scheme should be expanding, shouldn't it? If there was COVID, et cetera. So explain this to us. So 80 crore, 81, that's fine, because there's always some cards where some people have died and those cards get canceled, you give it to somebody else. But where does this number come from? This again comes from the National Food Security Act, which says that 75% of the rural population and 50% of the urban population should be covered with what are called priority ration cards, right? This was based on the population of 2011. The act itself says that this should be based on the latest population figures. But because we did not have a census in 2021, the population figures have also not been updated. So we made an estimate, the right to food campaign did and it has also been published by Jhondrez and Itika Khera in the scroll, that we made an estimate of if you use the projected population figures and you met the proportions that the act specifies, 75% rural, 50% urban, there would be 10 crore more people who are actually eligible to be in the ration list. So it is not 81 crore, it should be 91 crore, right? And that additional has not been given and the government, even in the Supreme Court has taken the stand that because we have not done a census, we don't know how many people there are in the country, so we can't update. The government itself says that we do not know how many more people should be beneficiaries of the scheme. Yeah, basically it is saying that census has not happened and so we will go by the census that is there, which is now 12 years old and the population is growing. Absolutely. And even the hardships are growing, as you just mentioned. Now, Dr. Sinha, one more thing comes to mind that some people have been characterizing despite everything that you just pointed out based on facts, based on evidence, some people still say that, you know, this scheme is part of the so-called ruled word, the unkind word, which has been used, it's ravely culture. Now, how would you respond to that? Is that fair criticism? Is this ravely? See, like I've said, even when this whole ravely debate was in fact provoked by the Prime Minister himself, I think the use of the word ravely itself is not correct in relation to anything that the state is giving. Because it has a, like you said, it is not a respectful word. It is as if the people receiving them have no dignity of their own, as if this is some charity that's being thrown on them. So I think this ravely is an entirely wrong language and should not be used because nothing that is democratically elected government gives through its welfare schemes is a freebie or a ravely. It's funded by people who are paying taxes, by people who are choosing who our governments will be. There could be a debate on how better that money could be spent. Right. Definitely. Even in terms of welfare, I could have an opinion that instead of making this free, I might say that that same money, if it was spent in giving people dal at half the market price, maybe that would have been even more useful. So that kind of debate can definitely go on, but I think the use of the word of the language ravely is a bit unfortunate because it makes it seem as if it is a charity that not an elected government is giving, but as if we are living under some kind of a monarchy where this charity is being doled out. Right. And in a sense, we also see that the government has to extend the scheme because there is a need for it. And so I come to the other criticism which we hear, which is that there are pressing issues that plague India today as they did a decade ago. And we can go as far back as we like to look at the nutrition standards, to look at maternal health, to look at mortality figures, to look at anemia, et cetera, et cetera. So is that fair criticism that instead of this we should have something else? No. So that's what I said. So one could discuss what is the best, but at the same time that hunger and food security continue to be an issue in India, there is no doubt. And one must understand that why would a prime minister do it? Why are people responding so well to the scheme? Because clearly it is filling a need. It is filling a gap. Why is a person losing almost a whole day's wages to stand in a queue to get this grain, which is often not a very good quality either. It is because every rupee that they can save and on something like that is something need currently. Because like we've been saying, paid employment has been really not being created as much. There is a shortage and food is the basic necessity. This is something that has to be available with some stability. You can't say like say it's a motorcycle or it is something else. You can say, okay, I'll buy it when I have money. But with food, you can't do that. You have to feed your children. You have to feed yourself to even keep working. So that was the whole understanding behind having a scheme like a PDS and having the NFSA that at least the basic staples will be available and currently definitely post COVID, the recovery has still not fully happened. And so there is a need. I'm just saying that there is a need for much more support in fact, not just rice and wheat, but we need to do other things as well. Right, so can you then place India in a broad context in terms of nutrition, security? Where are we right now? Why is it that you and many others say that vegetables, dal, oil, even salt should be given as some states often do. Why is it so essential? Why should it be something that is sort of guaranteed to people at least for the next five years? So firstly, like I said, there is hunger and food insecurity. Second, like we know all these various figures that we have on the extent of malnutrition, like say stunting among children, wasting among children, anemia amongst women, all these figures are quite high. The India ranks quite poorly in all of these. It is true that in some of these indicators, like stunting, it's not just the food that you eat, but the disease environment, health services, all of this contribute. At the same time, what we also know from whatever little data is available is that the food that people eat in India is not what one would consider a healthy diet. So they might not be hunger where people are sleeping on an empty stomach every night. That might have come down. But in terms of what is the nutritious content of the food that people are eating, you see that a lot of the data shows that it's heavily cereal-based diets with very not enough protein, not enough micronutrients coming from food. Where does that come from? It comes from basic things like dal, milk, eggs, meat for people who eat it, vegetables, fruits and so on. Just one more figure I'll share with you, that over 70% in India, this is a high figure even in the other South Asian countries, cannot afford a healthy diet according to the FAO. They look at the prices of the foods locally and they look at what are the wages of people and they think 70% cannot afford a healthy thali. That the Indian Council of Medical Research says that Indian people should eat to remain healthy. So that basically means that we need to start thinking about dietary diversity and getting all these other things into people's plates. So the moment you start expanding a scheme that provides cereal, you have to grow cereal and then you have to also provide through the BDS to transport it, to collect it and the government has to purchase it, even if it buys from a small number of farmers, is there a concern about inflation over here? That actually the government, when it's political season, it's an election season, all the parties want to hike up the MSP, is there going to be a big problem with inflation as a result of this? Will the poor actually not be able to afford to buy grain if the MSP keeps getting high with bonuses, et cetera, et cetera? Actually, again, we need to look at the full picture here because the MSP is increasing and again, that's where the BDS plays a very important role. So it really depends on how this entire food economy is managed. Why do we have this MSP kind of system? One reason is also because India is one of those countries where we have a large population which is food producers but they're also net consumers of food because many of our farmers are small and marginal. So they might be producing food, that's where they're getting their main livelihood from but they're also buying food from the market. So we have this kind of, that's why the market fails because we want the farmer to get a higher price but we want the consumer and even the farmer when the farmer is going to the market as a consumer to pay a lower price. Absolutely. How do you do? The BDS plays a big role here that the government is guaranteeing to buy at a minimum support price. At the same time, the government is putting so much grain back into the market at such a low price, free now currently. That is expected to balance the prices to some extent for the consumers as well. The other part of inflation has a lot to do with actually global factors as well which is why I am insisting again and again on pulses and oils because these are two crops that we import. And often we face these volatility in the prices because those prices are not in our hands at all. These were both crops in which India was food self-sufficient till the early 90s and then with the whole free trade and WTO we have started importing these. If we procured them, if the government had some control over these crops as well which it would if they were included in the BDS then it would be able to control their prices also better. That's right. So unless the terms of trade are actually shifted to help developing countries, not just India to provide food to people through their public distribution system, then otherwise you end up with systems like the cash transfers which the government has been doing. And what do you think of them? The 80 crore people who would stand to benefit from this versus the 2000 rupees a quarter that goes into bank accounts. Is that a good way to provide the money for the dal and the proteins and the other micronutrients? See for these basic food items given everything that we have just discussed that there is this role that procurement plays even in giving the farmer the minimum support. I think the previous plays a very good role of where the government procures and gives it at a lower price. Cash transfers have their own role and we've had cash transfer programs for very long because we have a large informal sector where social security has not got through the normal ways in a formal sector. So we have a maternity benefit scheme. We have old age pensions. We have widow pensions. We have disability pensions. These are all cash transfers as are very necessary. It can't be done as a nutrition intervention. It is a social security intervention that also has to be done. So I just wanted to just quickly go over some of the numbers. You mentioned protein and date. Now one of the areas in which in India the prices are rising the fastest is spices, sugar, fruit, eggs. Now we know that since the early 2000s Indians have been shifting towards a more protein intensive diet. People are keen to eat more egg, fish and chicken and reducing that actually at the cost. Now the prices of these higher end proteins goes up and the lower end proteins which were more accessible become less accessible but the only thing the government is giving you is cereal. What happens then? What is the impact of this on health? Exactly what you're saying that see to be to have a nutritious meal to give the body adequate nutrition and to keep yourself away from disease and so on. You need to eat. I mean, we learn this from class one, right? That a balanced diet has to be consumed. And we know that people are not eating what you call the high end diets not because they don't want to but because they cannot afford post COVID. We did these hunger watch surveys with the right to food campaign with a lot of people told us that because of the reduced incomes these were the things that they stopped eating. They stopped eating eggs, they stopped eating milk and so on because it was just not a stop drinking milk and so on because it was not affordable. Even here I think at least we should begin with the group which is most susceptible to under nutrition and most vulnerable which is the young children and the pregnant women because again, we have programs like midday meal, ICDS and so on. So if we included just an egg a day in these programs once again, it could play the same role, right? That you're encouraging local cold trees if the government is buying for all the children then it could be like a livelihood scheme as well for some people locally which would mostly be women. And then you can also improve the intake through these things. Right, so to basically broadly some of what you've said you welcome the fact that the scheme has been extended to provide serials through the PDS even if the government is calling it PMG Pradhan Manty Garib Kalyan under huge now which is incorrect but still you think people will broadly really welcome having access to this free food drain but a lot more needs to be done if you want to ensure not just security from hunger but to protect people from the travails of not having enough money to buy healthy nutritious meals. Absolutely, so that's what I'm saying that given in desperate situation any little that is done people will definitely welcome but if you actually take a slightly longer term perspective and see what needs to be done to also improve food security and nutrition then we would look at food not just as rice and wheat we would look at it in terms of everything that people need to eat. So one part of it would be what the government gives through the public programs there would be many other things to be done reforms in agriculture, increasing productivity how to reduce prices, storage, all kinds of questions will automatically come up if we ask the right questions. Great, as also the final thing that the number of beneficiaries also needs to expand quite significantly, as you said earlier. Yes, yes, the population figures have to be updated especially in urban areas again throughout COVID we saw there were so many people left out so that is something that is urgent and we can't keep waiting for the census which we don't know when it'll happen it will be good if it happens soon but we have projected population figures we should just use that and update them. Great, thank you so much for joining us thank you very much for your time hope to see you again and thank you to... Thank you, thank you to everybody watching this interview thanks, bye bye.